Covid-2019 - 2022-12-16

When we were being taught journalism a half century ago, this headline from The New York Times in "Recommended Reading" would have gotten us a failing grade: "Just How Bad Is the 'Tripledemic'?" Before you even read the first paragraph, it has tricked you into accepting that there is a "tripledemic" in the first place. First it invents a new word which, by interpreting in your mind, you are forced to give meaning to, freighted by all its constituent connotations; and second, it constrains you to consider only the question of how bad it is, not whether it even exists.